How Dare the President Protect Consumers!?!?!
We’ll have to come back to the issue of why President Obama decided to use his recess authority to appoint Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board but not Dawn Johnsen or Elizabeth Warren. But for now, I’d like to collect the wails of Republican outrage.
Shorter John Boehner: Protecting consumers from rapacious banks is an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab! Protecting consumers is bad for the economy!
Shorter Mitch McConnell: Obama has arrogantly circumvented the American people by protecting the American people!
Shorter Orrin Hatch: It is a very grave decision by this heavy-handed, autocratic White House to appoint someone to protect consumers. The American people deserve to be treated with more respect than this White House is affording them by protecting them from the banks!
Shorter Spencer Bachus: Appointing a director to the CFPB will cripple it for years. The greatest threat to our economy right now is uncertainty, and by protecting consumers the President just guaranteed there will be even more uncertainty.
How can this be anything but an election year winner for Obama, who has done precious little along these lines? If there ever was a winning populist issue . . . We’ll just have to see how he manages to undercut all the best aspects of this appointment by reassuring us that he really does love him some Wall Street.
@DonS: Oh, I agree, this is a good move. The CFPB can be a very powerful entity. And if Obama wins, then Cordray’s good for 2 years. You can do a lot in 2 years.
First of all Obama does not protect consumers and never has, your post is more silly political noise!
@DonS: How can it be anything but a winner? Because who cares? Republicans will hate it, Obamabots will love it, leftists like me will scoff, and the general public will give two flying figs. And in a week it will be forgotten. But hey, at least a moderate Republicrat is in the CFPB and will do some mild good before the agency is hobbled forever.
We’ll have an early test in the foreclosure crisis doings, and the continuing frauds being perpetrated by the big banks. What Cordray does will speak louder than what Obama says.
@Tom Allen:
It’s a winner for the public. But it ‘could’ be a winner for Obama because the repubs will bring it up and try to hammer him with it (you know, dictatorial socialism, or whatever), at least through the primary season, and it could be a platform for Obama to hammer right back at the excess of Wall Street. IF. . . .
Natch, the repubs in Congress will continue to undercut the agency through budgetary means.
I emphasize my enthusiasm is for the potential good for the consumer. Obama, feh.
@emptywheel: @DonS: This was surely a political calculation on the part of Team Obama 2012. It is part and parcel of their “running against Congress” strategy.
I agree that it will sell well to the general electorate, but I do have misgivings about their usage of Steven Bradbury’s drivel to provide the legal underpinnings. Even the Bush/Cheney regime declined to cross this line.
And note that Team Obama 2012 chose to only (thus far) dip a single toe into the recess appointment water.
Perhaps a savvy political move, but if they truly bought into the Steven Bradbury legal theory, they would have moved dozens and dozens of Senate Repug-obstructed appointments through.
And if Team Obama 2012 were truly daring to believe, they perhaps might even have tried to recess appoint Federal judges as well, though that might be a bridge too far and risk invalidating their legal rulings.
@MadDog:
Obama has nothing to lose in my opinion.
Fuck those Republicans.
Warren will win in Mass too.
I really hope this ends up in SCOTUS. I’d like to see Scalitoberts try to deal with their conflicting emotions.
Who will have standing to force a court review of this move?
Another Democrat political move with little or no value for the public other then media hype. The idea that the Democratic Party controlled by banking interest could create a consumer protection bill that would in any meaningful way limit banking interest is total nonsense!
@ron:
Obama has seen the error of his ways…
@John B.: As bmaz will undoubtedly show up and explain, there’s already court precedent.
@emptywheel: Yeah, but that case involved a judge, and the putative plaintiffs were two litigants (not sure, but I think maybe criminal defs) that challenged Prior’s qualification to hear their cases based upon the nomination issue. They clearly had standing there – a direct issue.
I think it may indeed be harder to find standing here. Can’t sue Obama for what he does in office, would have to challenge Cordray himself I think. But who is a directly aggrieved/injured party? I guess someone affected by the CFPB maybe. I dunno, but I think it possible standing is more slippery to obtain than you think.
That said, the precedent Marcy was referring to supports Obama’s power.
@bmaz: Chamber of Commerce says it’s thinking of suing.
@Bay State Librul: OK, that’s a good laugh!
I assume that you guys are frantically working on a thread to explain Montana vs SCOTUS on Citizens United, yes?
@JTMinIA: I have been toying with that thought, we’ll see. Great decision though!
If my weak, layman’s understanding of appeals is on track (for once), it’s going to interesting because you can’t review the facts and the Montana court basically said that SCOTUS was wrong about the facts: money can corrupt (which seems so obvious that, of course, SCOTUS missed this point). Thus, SCOTUS might have to pull a whole new argument out of its hat, such as 1st A trumps all, which then might make direct bribery legal.
I am armed with popcorn and not afraid to use it.
@JTMinIA:
Armed and dangerous eh? :^)
To which Obama can retort, like he did at the WH Correspondents’ Dinner: “Predator drones.”, all the while thanking those very same assclowns for making such behavior legal.
@MadDog: The thought occurs to me that by elevating Cordray, at this time, and only Cordray, they challenge the Republicans to do something to block it. If they do move to block it, it will be an easy tool to hammer the Republicans with it. If they don’t block it, then Obama is emboldened to use the same trick again on a less charged appointment.
Of course, by “block it,” I mean they would challenge Obama’s action in Court.
Bob in AZ
@Bob Schacht: Yeah, I do agree that it is a politically savvy move. We shall see if it engenders siblings or not.
@scribe: Your powers of snark have not diminished in the new year.
@MadDog: Thank you, thank you very much. I’ll be here all week.
You can agree with him and think that we need this guy appointed- but we still have a nation of laws, and by making the appointment, he acted in an illegal and constitutional manner. He doesn’t get to decide when the Senate is in recess- he doesn’t have that authority. The Senate decides when it is in recess according to its own rules, and it has not done so. Thus they are not in recess. They are holding pro forma sessions, which Obama thinks are in effect like a recess- but ‘in effect like a recess’ is not the same as ‘in recess under Senate rules’. If they are not in recess under their own rules, he doesn’t have the authority to make a ‘recess appointment’.
Didn’t this guy teach law or something? It’s not that complicated.
Oh, and if you start making the argument that ‘the ends justify the means and that our guys can break all the laws they want if they do what we want’, be prepared to happily and willingly help the Tea Party Congress and a Romney President break any laws as badly as they want when it’s their turn to decide what the ends are.
Obama’s behavior is criminal, and I will fight against it and similar behavior from the GOP because I believe in law and principles. You should change your tune and do the same.
@A Conservative Teacher: Aw, this is a load of crap.
First off:
Um, yes, it has. Harry Reid recessed the Senate. Well before Christmas, Reid sought and obtained this unanimous consent:
Secondly, the entire “pro forma” three day bullshit is based on a vapor from a non-binding, non-authoritative, dicta from a 1993 DOJ memo; there is NO MINIMUM RECESS TIME that has to occur before a President can make a recess appointment. None. I explain that here.
Thirdly,
No he did not. Recess appointments are provided for under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution and there simply is NO restriction on timing of recess appointments by a President stated or suggested in the Constitution.
You are absolutely nuts here.